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Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint

• To: jcowan@r...
• Subject: Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
• From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
• Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:41:06 -0800
• Cc: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@d...>,xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <20031215170825.GA2603@s...>
• References: <6.0.0.22.2.20031215094429.03b3a8e0@p...> <20031215170825.GA2603@s...>

On Dec 15, 2003, at 9:08 AM, jcowan@r... wrote:

>> What is the "cognitive style" of writing documents in XML vs. 
>> PowerPoint,
>> Word, or FrameMaker? Do the tools we use to write affect the way we 
>> think?
>
> It's not at that level: it's about bullet-point lists, really.

The tools we use *do* affect the way we think.  But John's right.  I 
recently switched from PPoint to Keynote (Apple's competitor) and 
decided that, to use IETF-talk, presentations SHOULD NOT contain bullet 
lists, and in the three or four big speeches I've done since then, 
managed to have only one or two, and there are places in fact where 
it's sensible to enumerate some things visually and then talk about 
them.

So my slides now have a lot more pictures; in fact if I can't 
illustrate something I usually won't make a slide for it.  I believe 
this has two effects: (a) the presentations are more entertaining.  (b) 
the slides are less useful as collateral to distribute later. -Tim

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  • The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
    • From: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@d...>
  • Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
    • From: jcowan@r...

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